


Belt up, boy, and stay focused on the mission.

by bees_stories



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Broken Friendship, Episode Reaction, Gen, Introspection, Regret, Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 03:04:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1154002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bees_stories/pseuds/bees_stories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean lives by the Hunter's Code. It's a hard way of life, but it's the life he knows best. On a difficult mission, one rule keeps running through his head. For Dean it's all that stands between survival and giving into his pain when Sam's last hope bears a stunning resemblance to a long lost friend.<br/>A/N: Contains general spoilers for Season Seven and specific ones for 'The Born Again Identity'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belt up, boy, and stay focused on the mission.

***

He'd been spiraling downward for months. Dean knows it and he is past caring. The only thing that kept him hanging on – that prevented him from walking into a nest of vampires or into the path of a vengeful spirit – was that Sammy needed him. Needed him bad. So while the people at the hospital did what they could to keep his brother safe and quiet as his brain fried, Dean burned up the phone lines calling every Hunter and Hunter's ally in Bobby's phone book as he searched desperately for a cure.

As for his own mental health, it didn't matter. Dean had no time or patience for shrinks or counselors, even if he did need one as badly as Sam. He did what all Hunters did; he drank. But no matter how much whiskey he downed, the ache in his heart refused to subside. He could only numb it. Numb himself and keep dialing and researching and hoping – but not praying – for a cure. There wasn't any one left to answer his prayers, so there wasn't any point in getting down on his knees or lifting his eyes towards Heaven. 

He just kept pushing buttons until he got a hit.

***

His stomach clenches and his heart skips a couple of beats. He tries to play it cool, but the man called Emmanuel is wearing Cas's face.

Dean gets a better grip on his knife, prepared to strike again as possible suspects flicker through his brain. Shifter? Leviathan? But why would it work with a demon? No. It must be something else. Then he remembers Jimmy Novak and he wonders if maybe, just maybe, Jimmy had a twin. It's a decent theory and Dean decides to run with it, because there is no way this is Cas. 

Cas was dead. He had to be. Dean had seen him walk into the reservoir and he had watched in sick horror as the swarm of Leviathans surged out of him, turning the water black. In their bid for escape they had shattered the angel's human vessel just as Death had predicted. Maybe if they'd found a way to stop him sooner, things might have turned out differently, but they hadn't. They'd tried to defuse the bomb Cas had made himself into and failed. He'd blown up anyway.

Dean had done the only thing he could do. He retrieved Cas's blood-stained coat as it washed up on shore and carried it home with him. He'd meant to burn it on a Hunter's pyre, but he never quite managed to get around to it. Not even when they had to build one for Bobby.

_Belt up, boy, and stay focused on the mission._

Sam may be stuck in a cage match with Lucifer, but Dean hears voices too. The voices in his head are those of his Dad. Bobby. Rufus. Even his Granddad, may the son of a bitch rot in hell. And they all tell him the same thing: _let sleeping angels lie._

He hears his father's voice surge up from his subconscious. Or maybe it's the lack of booze in his system talking. For the first time in weeks, Dean is approaching sobriety. Either way, this time it's good advice. He can worry about why a faith healer is wearing Cas's face later, after Sam is healed. 

But he keeps glimpsing Castiel's eyes looking out from the softer, less careworn face of Emmanuel and he can't leave well enough alone. It's there when Dean mentions there are demons, plural, and Emmanuel's look of wonder over the existence of a single demon shifts, becoming a warning. His eyes slide away from Dean's and he looks at the ground, just as Cas did when he found something too uncomfortable to talk about. 

Later, Emmanuel tries to warn him away from probing too deeply, but Dean can't stop himself. 

He has to know. 

And Emmanuel is right, Dean doesn't like what he hears. Because if his suspicions are true, it means that God really does love Castiel best. A loving wife. A nice house. A good life. All the goodies for God's favorite angel. 

The flames of jealousy flicker brightly. Dean can feel them burning in his gut. It would have been really nice to have had a loving and merciful father watch over him. One that would wipe the slate clean and let him have do overs when he screwed up. John Winchester had been a hard man who had live by the Code, the rules all Hunter's swore to live by, and he had taught his sons to do the same. 

One of those rules was 'Always clean up your mess.' 

Sam was Cas's mess. 

_Belt up, boy, and stay focused on the mission._

Dean tries to hang on to his theory that Jimmy Novak has an amnesiac twin, but his suspicions multiply. He changes the subject and keeps driving.

Eventually, Emmanuel asks about Sam. "What's his diagnosis?"

It's a reasonable question. Maybe even something Dean should have explained earlier, before he dragged Emmanuel away from his perfect life. And before he can stop himself, he opens up, just like he used to do around Cas. Back when they could still talk to one another. Back when they were still friends. 

Back when Dean could still trust him.

His confession is a dangerous thing. He's jeopardizing the mission. Because if Emmanuel is Cas, he might remember. And if he remembers, he could freak out and then who will put Sam's custard back into the bowl? 

Friends fell out. Sometimes they patched things up. Sometimes they didn't. But family was another story. Different rules applied. Family could rip each other to shreds, but they always found their way back to one another. Push came to shove, when the chips were down, they always put their differences aside, at least long enough to fight the good fight.

Cas had been family. Even if he said otherwise. 

Dean knows if Cas hadn't have walked into that reservoir they would have hashed it out eventually. But he did. And he died. 

Cas isn't here. He can't be. 

Emmanuel is kind. He's a good listener. He's the first person Dean's been around in ages who hasn't told him he's lucky to be who he is, and he should stop complaining because a Hunter's life is a hard life, and bruises – both physical and emotional – come with the territory. Emmanuel tells him it's okay. It doesn't matter that he can't shake off his pain, because he's not a machine. 

Hope that maybe, when this is all over, they can put things right, hurts more than grief.

***

Meg, that bitch, calls him on his crap. She accuses him of double dipping.

Dean protests, caught out. There's no bad water under the bridge with Emmanuel, not like there had been with Cas. He's been miserable for months, putting one foot in front of the other and doing his job because that's what Hunters did. So sue him if, for just a little while, he'd decided to indulge in the fantasy that Dean Winchester mattered. 

Not as a Hunter.

Not as his brother's keeper. 

Not as a soldier in the fight for human survival. 

But because he was Dean Winchester and even someone who had lived as bloody and cruel a life as he had deserved a friend as warm and open and nonjudgmental as Emmanuel.

He mouths the right words about the mission. He _needs_ Emmanuel. Sam _needs_ Emmanuel. Neither one of them needs a broken Cas. Because at the end, Cas was broken and of no use to anyone, not even himself.

Meg just roles her eyes and invites herself along for the ride.

***

Dean hates it that Meg is right. Actually, they both are: they need Cas's juice to get past the demons and Cas freaks out and nearly compromises the mission when he finds out who and what he is.

Smiting the demons brings back all the bad memories. Dean watches with a sense of grim inevitability as Cas buckles under the pain of what he's done. It's just as he predicted. Cas isn't hard in the right places and he can't face the consequences of his actions. 

Dean has come way the hell too far, and driven way the hell too many miles to fail. He doesn't have the time or the energy to indulge Cas's pain.

_Belt up, boy, and stay focused on the mission._

Though it grinds his gears to do it, he gives Cas a pep talk. He lies. Or maybe he doesn't. Cas never did get real specific about what he'd been up against in Heaven. Maybe he really had given it his all. Maybe things were just _that_ bad and he couldn't see a better path. It doesn't matter. What's done is done. But Dean pretends. He gives Cas the pep talk of the century because there is nothing more important than getting him inside the hospital so he can fix Sam like he'd promised. 

It works. Except that it doesn't. Cas might have the juice to smite demons, but he doesn't have the juice to fix what's broken inside Sam's head. 

He's sorry. So sorry. But being sorry doesn't clean up the mess.

***

Cas does belt up in the end. And it breaks him. Sam's damage and his own is too great a weight for even for an angel to bear.

As they dress Cas in a set of hospital pajamas, Dean feels the numbness crawl back over him. He's got Sammy back, and for that he's grateful, but Cas is gone, lost inside his own head. 

This is Dean's mess, and he can't clean it up. He leaves Meg to do what he should; watch over Cas and keep him safe from the monsters who might threaten his safety. Meg promises to protect Cas, and she is a demon of her word. It's a very small consolation.

Dean leaves the hospital in the rear view mirror. His guilt makes him feel tired and worn down, but there's a lot of miles to go before he can sleep. He needs a bracer if he's going to keep going. He gets his flask out of the glove compartment and has a belt. 

It burns as it goes down, taking some of his pain with it. He thinks about the long car ride that had brought them to the hospital. For one dark and rainy night Dean had Emmanuel at his side, smiling his gentle smile as he talked about his good life, and he had almost felt happy. 

Emmanuel had a wife. Someone's going to have to tell her that her husband isn't coming home. It's another mess to clean up. And this time, Dean doubts that God is going to hold the dust pan. 

The thought makes him angry. And anger is easier to deal with than guilt. 

And it's a hell of a lot easier to live with than hope.

end


End file.
